


Cashing In

by valda



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Did you see the archive warnings?, Kylux Cantina, M/M, Suicide, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 23:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11588778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/pseuds/valda
Summary: Armitage Hux, former general of the First Order, faces his ultimate fate thanks to a bet he should never have made.





	Cashing In

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Kylux Cantina](http://kyluxcantina.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr, and originally posted [here](http://cosleia.tumblr.com/post/161717747533/cashing-in).

For the first time in his life, Armitage Hux had made a wager. Taken a gamble. Made a decision based not on data, on projections, on strategy, but on something nebulous, something foolish. Losing because your numbers weren’t good enough, your information wasn’t complete, your plan didn’t take all possibilities into account—that stung, but so long as you survived, it meant you’d learned. That you’d know more, do better in the future.

There was nothing to be gained from a bet. Absolutely nothing. And there was everything to lose.

Hux straightened the formless gray tunic, brushed down the equally formless gray pants. He gave himself a long look in the mirror, willing the emotion from his face.

He couldn’t even blame Ren for this. It was his own fault. His own mistake. He would face it.

“It’s time,” a guard said, and then four of them entered, surrounding Hux, securing binders to his wrists and ankles. He did not fight them. There was no point. His slippered feet scuffed the dusty floor as they guided him from his cell.

He was led to the far end of a courtyard. The guards shoved him back against a durasteel post, undoing the binders just long enough to secure him to it. It was midday on this planet, apparently; the sun sat directly overhead, baking down on him so hard sweat was already gathering at his temples.

Across the courtyard stood the witnesses, and the firing squad.

If, somehow, his bet had not been a mistake, this would be the time something would happen. It was the absolute last opportunity.

But Hux was done counting on that bet. He gazed straight ahead, chin raised, not looking at the soldiers or the civilians. They thought they were executing him for war crimes. But they were wrong. His actions had been just, and should have brought order to the galaxy. Now it was all lost, and it was his own fault. And so in truth, this was his punishment for believing in Kylo Ren.

He would take what he deserved.

A woman—General Leia Organa, Hux supposed—was listing the New Republic’s complaints against him, but he did not hear them. A rushing filled his ears as the sun glinted off the blasters leveled in his direction. Despite himself, he felt his fists clenching where they were shackled behind the post, nails digging into his palms. Organa spoke and he heard nothing but a distant, never-ending drone. A breeze ruffled his hair, but it was hot and rough, and his throat was dry and his nose was filled with dust, and he was ready.

“Ready.” Organa’s voice cut through the dust storm of his mind, sharp as a vibroblade. “Aim.” Hux wondered what it would feel like, to be penetrated by dozens of blaster bolts. He wondered where they would strike him. He wondered if he would die instantly, or if he would suffer. “Fire.”

In that moment, that split-second, Hux heard something else, a loud, choked sound like a sob, and, thoughtlessly, he looked, and there he was, there was Kylo Ren— _Ben Solo_ —standing in the middle of the witnesses, his face a flood of tears, and Hux thought, irritated, that if he had that much moisture available he should share some—

And then he was thrown back against the post, jerking wildly as a million points of pain broke out across his stomach and chest and legs, and there was a burning, and a  _smell_ , and he thought his heart might be exploding, and then—

The body of Armitage Hux, former general of the First Order, slumped down the post as far as the binders would let it, head hanging, shoulders sickeningly distended, legs bent in an unnatural squat as the binders kept the corpse cruelly hanging. Smoke rose from black-limned, craterous wounds too numerous to count. The body might only be holding together due to the prison jumpsuit; perhaps soon it would fall to pieces.

The one man Hux had ever bet on, the one bet Hux lost, fell to the ground, heaving. And then he too crumpled, gasping and coughing up blood, the wild, staticky blade of a crossguard lightsaber singing through his heart.


End file.
